The House of Korona
by Finding Corona
Summary: What if Corona had been a real place and the events in "Tangled" had really happened? Where was Corona? Who were the King and Queen? And what was the magic golden flower, really? "House of Korona" weaves "Tangled" backstory into historical events.
1. A Rumor From the North

_~Contents~_

March 1309  
><em>1. Introduction: A Rumor from the North<em>

June 28, 1309  
><em>2. Chapter I: The Tear of Heaven ~ introduces the magic golden flower<em>

June 21, 1378  
><em>3. Chapter II (i): The Storm ~ introduces Rapunzel's ninth-great grandfather<br>4. Chapter II (ii): Elijah's Horses ~ introduces Maximus's ancestors  
>5. Chapter II (iii): The Hidden Tower ~ introduces the tower in the wilderness<br>6. Chapter II (iv): Mother ~ introduces Gothel  
><em>_7. Chapter II (v): The Vow ~ introduces fourteenth-century pub thugs_

May 15, 1457  
><em>8. Chapter III: Servant of the Crown ~ introduces the first "King" of Korona, Rapunzel's seventh-great grandfather<em>

July 18 to August 2, 1706  
><em>9. Chapter IV (i): The Princess of Radziwill ~ introduces Rapunzel's parents, the King and Queen<br>__10. Chapter IV (ii) Unexpected Negotiations ~ introduces Rapunzel's maternal grandfather  
><em>_11. Chapter IV (iii) Strawberry-picking and Cold Knees  
><em>_12. Chapter IV (iv) The Grand Ball  
><em>_13. Chapter IV (v) The Secret _

* * *

><p>INTRODUCTION<br>_March 1309_

_**A Rumor from the North**_

When they had first arrived in Gdansk a year ago, the Knights of the Teutonic Order had cared only for gold. Some fifty years had passed since they had left the Christian Holy Land at the end of the Crusades, and now back in Europe, a new purpose called them. They were now an army for hire.

Wladislaw the Elbow-High of the Poles had called them. Drive out the usurping Germans from the port city of Gdansk and you shall have your reward, he told the Order. So it did, but Wladislaw's payment had never come. Determined not to give the city to him for nothing, the Order stayed.

So it was that, as the Order's first year in Gdansk neared an end, a rumor reached the ears of the Grand Master in Venice – something wonderful and far more valuable than all the gold of the would-be Polish King. If it was true, there could be no question of yielding Gdansk to anyone, whatever the payment. Could it be that the secret prophecies the Order had discovered in Palestine had been fulfilled by the shores of the Baltic? Might that divine gift even now be outside the walls of Gdansk, within the Order's very grasp?

The Grand Master dispatched his most trusted servant to find the answer.

« NEXT: The Tear of Heaven »


	2. The Tear of Heaven

_~Foreword~_

_In this chapter, I offer my take on how the sunburst seal that is on all the heraldry of Corona first came into being. I also explain why the tower that would later be Rapunzel's home was built and by whom. There's a brief first mention of Gothel and a explanation of how the magic golden flower was seen as the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy._

* * *

><p>CHAPTER ONE<br>_June 28, 1309_

_**The Tear of Heaven**  
><em>

The soldier stood at the front of the gondola, as though convinced his eagerness could make the boat cut through the water more quickly. The peal from the bell tower in St. Mark's rippled down the still waters of the Grand Canal. Three o'clock. He was late.

The boat came to rest against the pilings on the far side of the canal, and the man leapt off. A guard stepped forward to meet the man, but upon recognizing him retreated immediately, cowed by the merest glance. The man continued into the depths of the building without hindrance, neither a wild beast loosed in the palaces of Venice nor the pope himself but evidently feared as much as either. He bore the mark of a blade across his left cheek, which had never healed properly, and he walked with a distinct limp, which he had never attempted to heal, though he was now moving as briskly as any uninjured man. To the guards who knew him only by those wounds and by his wrath whenever delayed, he was the Wolf of Palestine – a man whose business was only what the Order wanted done quietly. And on this day, that business was held tightly in his right hand.

He pushed through the last, tall double door with a flourish that was doubtless intentional, to find a group of men seated with an air of deepest solemnity and clearly unaccustomed to being interrupted in such a way – except by this man.

"It is true," he said, his voice a wounded rasp that embodied the image of the man.

"You have found it, then," said the Grand Master, rising from his seat.

"No. But there are those who know of it."

"And they can be trusted?" the Grand Master asked.

"Their testimony was obtained in such a fashion as it is not to be doubted."

"And they can lead us to it?"

"There is no guide. It must be sought, and there are … impediments."

"Impediments?"

"There are stories of a witch who guards it, who draws health and eternal life from its power."

"From the Tear of Heaven?"

The man nodded.

"And how is she to be found?"

The man's cloak flashed as though he were brandishing a sword, but from this motion – too quick for the eyes of the assembled men to follow – came only the thin clink of a bronze medallion. It skittered across the long table at which they sat and came to rest in front of the Grand Master. He picked it up and held it between his thumb and forefinger. Carved into the metal was a symbol: a sunburst of fourteen rays, seven long interspersed by seven short.

"What is this?" the Grand Master questioned.

"It is the sign of the searchers – the symbol that marks those who believe in the Tear of Heaven and seek it, though they do not understand its Scriptural import. I daresay they believe in it as a matter of superstition."

One of the other men at the table looked confused.

"What does this mean, Grand Master?"

The Grand Master waved his arm impatiently. "Let us hear from the Codex of Acre." A third man at the table read from the manuscript before him.

"Shall the words of James come to pass? Shall any jot or tittle of the law not be fulfilled? Be ye not so unbelieving, ye men of faith. Great wonders shall come to pass before the end times, and the end times shall not come until they are seen."*

The Grand Master strode out from behind the table in an attitude of determination, hands clasped behind his back.

"I … I do not understand," said the confused man.

"Other parts of the Codex, as well as other documents in our possession – procured in the Holy Land and unimpeachable – have suggested to us that the Second Coming of Christ shall come by degrees, twelve miracles, each more remarkable than the last, until at last Christ shall come. These miracles were forecast in the letters of the New Testament – clues were left for those wise enough to discern them."

"And this is one of them?"

"It is the gift that has come from above, from the Father of Lights, the humble lily of the field that spins not but prefigures the coming of Christ arrayed in his full glory."

The Grand Master looked to the Wolf, who had been silent, for affirmation. He nodded.

"Then we must stay," the Grand Master added.

Some around the table looked fortified, others worried.

"Stay?" the worried man asked.

"We must not depart from Gdansk. Wladislaw has not yet paid full restitution. That is reason enough. We need give no other."

He turned to one of the men at the table who seemed as eager as him.

"My Lord Robert, we must extend our reach beyond the city. We must hold all Pomerelia. We must have fortifications and strongholds in the wildernessfrom which we might search in safety. This is of the essence. Call the council. See that it is done."*

"My Lord," said Robert and swept from the room.

The Grand Master turned back to the room at large.

"We are engaged, my friends. A great wonder is within our grasp. We must not fail to seize it."

« NEXT: The Storm »

* * *

><p><em>NOTES<em>

_• I liked playing around with the idea that an army of defeated Crusaders came back from the Holy Land only to stumble upon a miracle in some Polish backwater. Glen Keane has said the inspiration for "Tangled" came from the book of James in the New Testament (chapter 1, verse 17), so I basically took that idea and twisted it to make the passage a prophecy for the appearing of the flower. To me, it fit well into the search for holy relics that typified the Medieval age. _

_• Glen Keane said that the tower was a remnant of _"a kingdom that was there, there were ruins around the area. The only thing that remained was this tower." __


	3. The Storm

_~Foreword~_

_If you look closely at the time-lapse of the Kingdom during the Prologue in "Tangled," the first buildings that appear on the island are a few houses huddled around where the quays would eventually be. This is my attempt to imagine what life in that first settlement would have been like._

_+ Screenshot from "Tangled" of the settlement (frame two) +  
><em>findingcorona(dot)tumblr(dot)com/post/4651317660/looking-at-these-screenshots-next-to-each-other-a

_+ Rapunzel flower +  
><em>findingcorona(dot)tumblr(dot)com/post/6997840723/campanula-rapunculus-rampion-in-english-rapunzel

_+ Map of the places in this story +  
><em>findingcorona(dot)tumblr(dot)com/post/7280139900/this-is-a-companion-map-to-my-story-the-house-of

* * *

><p>CHAPTER TWO<br>_June 21, 1378_

{ Part One }**_  
>The Storm<em>**

Mother said a prayer that day as Papa left the house. Usually, this would have made little impression on Piotr. It was hardly unusual for Mother to invoke the protection of some saint as Father stepped out the door, after all. But today, she clearly meant it. Papa said the storm had blown itself out last night, but none of the other fishermen had gone out that morning, and Mother had shared their foreboding. Now, that foreboding had seemed a premonition as she, Piotr, and the other three children gathered around the fire as the lungs of the world outside emptied themselves in shrieks through the eaves.

It was at times like this when Piotr thought the tiny island he, his family, and a half dozen other fishermen lived on seemed less a rock than a shipwreck.* Even sheltered by the long shoals of the Hel headlands beyond, the sea seemed a churning, living thing – a thousand clutching arms of froth and foam searching blindly for any sailor foolish enough to tempt them. Piotr had stood at the top of the island and watched it out in the distance that afternoon: The ocean's anger with the sky, gray streaks of rain pouring into the unsettled sea.

This island had been a refuge. There were no imperial designs on a few fishing cottages, no glory for the Knights of the Teutonic Order in a fresh catch of cod. Piotr could remember his father and the other fishermen who came here with him laying the fat timbers of the quayside buildings with mounting urgency as the winter came in. Partly unfinished and cloaked in the winter's first snow that year, Piotr thought they looked like portly friars leaning together for warmth.

Now, he imagined them huddled together in gossip, contemplating the lone boat that had left the quays this morning, debating its chances of return. Night fell, and their whispers found voice in the sound of the rain on the windowpanes. Piotr's sleep was restless between the talking of the rain and the images he processed only in semiconsciousness of Mother sitting by the fire, not sleeping. Every time he opened his eyes, the image was unchanged, his mother so still that he became confused as to whether these glimpses were real or the fevered stirrings of his thought.

He awoke near daybreak, when the light outside the window was still gray and menacing. His mother loomed over him, spectral in the gloaming and the light of the fire's last embers.

"I am going to find it. You must find him, Piotr."

The statements needed no further explanation, and Mother swept out the door without offering any.

No one had ever seen it in living memory. Only stories remained. Stories of a magic golden rapunzel flower* that glowed like the sun even in the dead of night. Stories of the ancient witch who tended it, to whom it bestowed eternal life and health. Mother could never account for how such stories started, or by whom they had first been told. Yet they had been told around the family hearth on days like this one for as long as Piotr could remember. And on days like this one, too, hope gathered the smoke of myth into something more solid – the earnest belief that, perhaps, if the seeker's need was worthy, such a thing might be found. And this was Mother's hope: That the magic golden flower could heal father, who must surely be washed up on some shore with the wrack of his pitiful boat.

When morning arrived fully, it was glorious, as it so often is after a storm – the genius of nature's own forgetfulness. The children were easily bestowed upon Mrs. Kowalczyk, whose husband loosed his boat from its battered moorings and took Piotr to sea in search of his dead father.

« NEXT: Elijah's Horses »

* * *

><p><em>NOTES<em>

_• The Polish word for the rapunzel flower is "roszpunka," which is the name of the girl in the fairy-tale, too._


	4. Elijah's Horses

_~Foreword~_

_This installment gives a glimpse of Maximus' ancestors but mostly sets the stage for the event that will change the fate of Rapunzel's family three centuries before she was born. _

_+ Map of the places in this story +  
><em>findingcorona(dot)tumblr(dot)com/post/7280139900/this-is-a-companion-map-to-my-story-the-house-of

* * *

><p>CHAPTER TWO<br>_June 21, 1378_

{ Part Two }  
><strong>Elijah's Horses<strong>

The shoals of death were well known to fishermen in the Gdansk Bay – those places where storms would vomit out the boats they consumed. Yet for the best part of the morning, Piotr and Mr. Kowalczyk skirted the coast, finding nothing. It was not until after mid-day that they headed out across the bay for the shallows of the Hel headlands. When the first hints of twilight were creeping into the sky, a rumor of the darkness gathering beyond the sea in the east, Mr. Kowalcyzk pointed to a shape rising from the bay. It was surely a ruined thing, its mast stuck out oddly into the sky, like a sundial mislaid in the water. But it was massive. It was not Father's boat. Father's boat could surely have fitted into the hold.

As they approached, the tricks of distance and dusk resolved themselves by degree. The form was not a single ship but several gathered around a large merchant's vessel beached in the shallows. The tide was at its low ebb, and Piotr could clearly see figures waist-deep in the water beside the beached vessel. But they were not men. A thrill shot through Piotr of old fishermen's tales of many-legged sea creatures throttling the ship for whatever treasure it held, be it blood or booty. But again the trick of distance was answered by something less fantastical – though no less puzzling.

Men were wading through the water, leading horses to shore. Piotr had never seen such horses, snow white and sturdy as a draft horse yet lithe. He thought them the spirits of the horses that must have died in the wreck, transfigured into divine perfection. Yet there in the water, leading one of the horses by its lead, was Father. Piotr hailed him, and Father answered his disbelief with a broad smile.

"Get yourself in the water and help me, boy."

When Mr. Kowalczyk had maneuvered the boat beside Father's, Piotr leapt in, taking deliberate pleasure in making the largest splash possible. All was joy.

"Take a look at this horse, son. Surely Elijah himself had no finer."*

"Mama and I thought you had followed him."

"This whirlwind was not for me," he answered.

Piotr, chest deep in the water, looked up at the horse his father had by the lead. It was more majestic even than it had seemed from a distance. The animal shivered in a gust of sea spray, its shining white coat tightening over knots of muscle as large as his forearm.

"Mama went looking for the flower," Piotr said, turning back to his father.

Father smiled, neither surprised nor exasperated. "Perhaps she found it, then. We have much to be grateful for, Piotr."

And he led Piotr and the horse to the shore where a man stood, waiting. On first impression, the man appeared to be one of those sorts of men with whom Piotr had no acquaintance. His clothes were ragged from his ordeal, but his manner was impeccable. He was no fisherman, certainly, nor did he appear to be a sea captain. Piotr had seen his share of those, for many sought refuge in the island cove near his home on days like the one that set this merchant ship upon the shallows. The captains gave the impression of enormous knowledge but no scholarship, of a blacksmith's strength but the weariness of ages. They could have been hewn from an oak with a blunt blade. This man, however, had something of the softness of wealth about him. His beard was far too neat, its whiskers cultivated like a springtime cabbage garden. But as Father approached, he did something Piotr had not expected: He headed for the water.

"That's sixteen," he said as he sloshed into the shallows. "There should be two more. Have you seen them?"

He spoke with an accent, and Piotr guessed he must be one of the German burghers from Gdansk.*

"They're caught in the wreckage," Father said. "Wojtek is trying to cut open the hold, but they're on the deep side and he can't get much leverage."

Without a response, the man made for the fishing boats clustered around the far side of the wrecked ship. Father let go of the horse, patted him on the rump, and pointed to a cloth bag fifteen yards down the beach.

"Take that to the man."

As Piotr leaned down to pick it up, he caught the sweet smell of oats. The bag was heavy, but he shouldered it without complaint. This was hardly the first time he had been commissioned to carry something nearly as heavy as himself.

The boat was no more than one hundred yards offshore, and Piotr found he could move through the shallows more swiftly than the man could, even heavily laden. The man's steps were unsure and tentative. Piotr arrived at the man's side before they reached the ships. The man looked around, surprised, as he heard Piotr cutting through the chill water beside him.

"Hello. Come to join our rescue party?"

Piotr nodded.

"And you are?"

"Piotr."

"And that man is your father?" he asked, pointing to shore.

"Yes, sir."

"He saved my life, he did. And now you're coming to save my last two horses, are you?"

Piotr nodded.

"Have you ever seen Andalusians* before?"

"The horses?"

"Yes, they're from Andalusia. Magnificent creatures, they are. I don't normally sail with my cargo, but the Andalusians … I think I fear losing them more than I do myself."

"So have you come from Spain?"

The man looked around, impressed.

"How does a fisher's son come to be such a man of the world as you?"

"The world comes to us, sir. Had you found our harbor yesterday, you might be back in Gdansk by now and your ship in one piece."

The man stopped by the hull of one of the fishing boats surrounding his ship.

"I do not like to be lectured. Least of all by children… Unless they are right."

And he smiled, holding out his hand to help lift Piotr into the boat.

The last two Andalusians were hemmed into a corner of the hold by a fallen mast that had broken through the deck, and the other fishermen who had come to help were in the hold with them, attacking various parts of the mast with axes. Piotr leaped down with the sack. The horses paced in their corner, ears pinned back, agitated by the hacking nearby. It would be at least an hour before the work was finished.

"Take care there, son. They're not taking kindly to all the noise."

But Piotr knew the job would be easily done by the oats themselves. Asking the men to stop their work for several minutes, he merely held out the oats in his hand until they came to him. After several minutes, the men could restart their work without the horses retreating to the far corner of the hold.

The man joined Piotr in the hold as the horses were eating.

"A man of the world and a horseman, to boot," she said. "I did not know such men existed in the wilds of Kashubia."*

"I know little of horses, sir, but have found common sense an adequate substitute for much of my ignorance."

"I would call that wisdom if I had any claim to identifying such things."

"If I could lay claim to half so many things as you, I would have no need of common sense – or wisdom. Only a good money-counter."

The man laughed. "You are quite right! Wisdom and wealth seldom keep good company."

The work was done before nightfall, but only just. There was no question of Piotr, Father, or Mr. Kowalczyk heading back for home now, so they instead stayed at the inn where the German had let a room in the nearby fishing village of Hel. The German and Piotr's father were up long in talking that night, speaking in whispered voices that Piotr could have overheard from his bed had he wished. But exhaustion laid greater claim on him than curiosity at that moment, and when he woke the following morning, the German, Mr. Kowalczyk, and Father were already dressed, waiting.

"Mother will be worried son, it's time to go."

« NEXT: The Hidden Tower »

* * *

><p><em>NOTES<em>

_• The "Elijah" passages here refer to 2 Kings 2:11, in which the prophet is taken into heaven in a whirlwind bearing horses and chariots of fire. _

• _Gdansk is a town that has continually alternated between Polish and German control. It was best known for its strong merchant class. _

_• Maximus is clearly an Andalusian horse. _

_• Kashubians are the distinct ethnic group living north and west of Gdansk._


	5. The Hidden Tower

_+ Map of the places in this story +  
><em>findingcorona(dot)tumblr(dot)com/post/7280139900/this-is-a-companion-map-to-my-story-the-house-of

* * *

><p>CHAPTER TWO<br>_June 21, 1378_

{ Part Three }  
><strong>The Hidden Tower<strong>

When Eva left her eldest son that morning, she had no plan other than to go farther into the highlands than she had ever before. The legend said that the flower could be found only if the seeker's need was without taint. So she would leave the search for it in the hands of the Almighty Himself. Let her become lost. Let her become prey to thieves and robbers and the worst sort of ruffians. But let not the purity of her search be doubted. She would not be parted from Jakub even by death – let that love for her husband be her guide.

It was after mid-day when she departed the trading road that ran west to German lands and instead took turns unfamiliar to her, sometimes heading off on smaller paths that gave no confidence that they led anywhere, other times heading off directly through the wood in boot-deep muck. Moving among the shadows and shafts of light that speckled the forest floor, Eva felt as though she was a child again – tiny beside the giant beech and oak trees. At eight, she had set off on her own Crusades – off into the forests outside Oliwa in search of the magic flower that mother had spoken of when she tucked Eva into bed each night. The heavens had sent it for a purpose that none but the successful seeker would know. Now, nearly thirty years later, as night closed in, the purpose of Eva's latest crusade began to seek simpler goals.

The afternoon had taken her farther into the wilderness than she had ever been – over hills that she had never even heard mentioned and through lonely forest clearings whose only words were those of the birds and brooks, seemingly unknown to any human. Ahead of her in the failing light of dusk stood a narrow and steep-walled valley, opening to her at one end like a natural amphitheater, a stream flowing from its heart. Hoping for a cave, perhaps, or some shelter for the night, she entered. It was not until she had walked several minutes – until she could at last see into the deepest part of the valley, that she saw something so unexpected that she at first thought her wearied mind had lapsed into visions.

High above the valley floor, a single light glowed gold, like a star suspended in the darkness. Slowly, Eva's eyes adjusted, and she saw against the dark shadows of the far wall of the valley, a darker shape, thin and tall, with the light atop it. It was a tower, though Eva could not imagine why it had been built in such a place. It was safe from siege perhaps, being so remote and so hidden, but for that reason it also afforded no view of the countryside. Not having the slightest clue who might have built such a tower – and not caring – Eva knocked on the door.

The sound of her fist on the tower door was impressive, her heavy blows echoing up the stone stairway behind. But she was uncertain whether any knock would reach the tower chamber, which must be fifty feet up. Nor did there appear to be any bell pull. Whoever was inside clearly did not want visitors. But at this point, Eva was hardly inclined to be courteous. Still there was no answer, and her panic rose. Without any hope of it working, she pulled the latch of the door. To her astonishment, it opened. The door swung wide.

As she ascended, so total was the blackness that it seemed to Eva that she had stumbled upon some portal into a different world and was even now crossing the threshold – rising into some strange universe of light. For a hundred upward steps – two breathless minutes – the only evidence of her own existence was the sound of her breath and her feet on the stairs, both of which she sought to muffle. She had counted the steps to maintain some semblance of calm as she ascended, and it was at one hundred and fifty-six that the brilliant outline of the trap door at the top of the stairs appeared. It was open, and as Eva paused beneath it, silent, no sound came from it but the crackle of a fire. Slowly, she climbed through the portal into a spare room decorated only by a scrubbed wooden table in the kitchen and a single armchair, which was facing the fire. Just as Eva wondered whether anyone was in the chair, a voice came – ancient, like the creak of a gnarled tree in high wind.

"Count Rügenwald?"

Eva did not know whether to answer, attack, or flee. Curiosity decided for her, and she walked to the other side of the chair. In it, sat a man of immense age – so old that Eva's immediate thought was that he sat here because he no longer had the strength to rise from his chair, much less manage one-hundred and fifty-six stairs.

"You are not the Count," he said, without any hint of shock. "Are you Gothel? Has the Count found you at last and sent you to me?"

Eva could make neither head nor tail of this comment, nor could she account for him raising his hand to her as though in salute, showing a sign burned into the palm of his hand that looked like a sun. The oddity of the scene robbed her of speech. A scar marred the left side of his face, and the blue eye that it bisected had turned milky, as though blind. The other eye, however, fixed her with a stare of bestial intensity. She felt like prey in the tall grass, a field mouse sensing the fox's pounce.

But the man continued without agitation. "You are not Gothel, I gather, nor have you found me or this place by any design," he said with a clear German accent.

He rose from his chair with an agility that Eva would have considered impossible and moved to the kitchen, limping heavily but not seeming to notice. Barely anything was in the kitchen, but somehow he produced a loaf of bread and several apples, which he slipped into a bag. He returned to Eva, still speechless, and held them out to her.

"I cannot take your food, good Sir. Surely you need it more than I."

"You can take it or not take it, as you will. But you must leave here, and at once. If the Count finds you here, he will kill you."

"Kill me? Whatever for?"

"Because I shall tell him to. As it is, your timing is to your good fortune. You find me only with the means of being charitable and at an age when the judgments of St. Peter have rather more claim on my heart than they did in my youth. You see, even the wolf can lie down with the lamb, my child. I do not wish to deprive children of their mother without cause. So take this food and leave at once. Follow the stream to the first crossroads you find and the south road will take you to an inn. You will be safe there.

"But I give you fair warning, if I hear that you have spoken to anyone of this place, you shall see me again, and only under the most unpleasant of circumstances. Believe me when I say that you should not wish it, and that my spies are many. Now go."

Hardly knowing what to believe, Eva took the sack and descended through the trap door, a last glance showing the man settling unconcernedly in his chair once again. Traveling across country after nightfall was hardly the wisest decision – she would give any of her children a hiding for even considering it – but she was at a loss for what else to do. Remaining in the valley, it seemed, would be to invite death.

For some time, Eva stumbled through the undergrowth, navigating only by the sheen of the waxing moon on eddies of calm water as the stream slipped seaward through the forest. She lost all sense of time, feeling she had walked for hours and fearing that the man had lied, she had passed the crossroads, or she would attract unwanted attention through her clumsy snapping of twigs in the darkness.

The moon had passed its highest point and was moving west in consideration of a dawn still hours hence when Eva's weariness at last compelled her to stop. The bread and apples in the bag, still untouched, gave her excuse, but it was thinly veiled. She was fast losing any hope of finding the crossroads, and eating the food allowed her to forestall her panic, at least for a moment, with the semblance of a purpose.

Eva did not know if she nodded off after finishing the food, but the next thing she could remember was the desperate thought that she was back in the valley and that the footsteps nearby were those of the bloody Count. There, hanging in the night before her, was a light like the one in the valley. But in the seconds that followed, Eva's exhausted mind tautened. The light was moving, and it was not pale gold but green and lowering. A crystalline voice accompanied it, dancing though the dark like the lantern held before it. Eva could not make out the words – it seemed she was singing – but the woman was coming closer.

Eva moved through the woods at an angle to intercept the lantern-holder obliquely, so that she might judge the stranger while still hidden in the woods. As they neared each other, Eva came to the edge of a road she had not seen, and on it was a young woman with a mane of black hair, unaccompanied and, evidently, unconcerned. She heard Eva in the brush and raised the lantern.

"Hello, little mouse," she said. "Are you there?"

« NEXT: Mother »


	6. Mother

_~Foreword~_

_Want to know how Mother Gothel was three hundred years before Rapunzel was born? Just the same, basically. Not to be trusted. The Snuggly Duckling? Still not for the squeamish._

_+ Map of the places in this story +  
><em>findingcorona(dot)tumblr(dot)com/post/7280139900/this-is-a-companion-map-to-my-story-the-house-of

* * *

><p>CHAPTER TWO<br>_June 21, 1378_

{ Part Four }  
><strong>Mother<strong>

Eva stepped into the road fully.

"Well, who would have thought someone like you was waiting in the woods to attack. I was hoping it was a bear, at least. You're not a bear, are you? You look more like a poor old mother who lost her way in the forest. However did you get here, love?"

"I came looking for something, and I got lost."

"Well, we'll have to see if we can help you find it! What was it? A cow, a necklace … a man." She smiled.

"It is something I have never seen in my whole life."

"Now _that _is interesting. Walk with me, won't you? I was getting a little bored singing here all to myself. _La-ti-da. La-ti-da. La-ti-d_a," she sang.

They walked on, Eva telling her story with frequent interruptions from the woman, who seemed to like to keep the conversation on a close tether. It was not until Eva came to the purpose of her journey that the woman's attitude changed. Eva had debated whether or not even to tell the woman about the flower, but everything about the woman gave an impression of being more than she appeared at first.

The transformation that came over her at the mention of the magic flower, however, was complete. In an instant, she looked panicked, fearful even.

"Oh my dear woman, do more than whisper those words in these woods, and you'll have the Count upon your head before you know it – and then you won't have a head to say anything at all! Say no more about the business, woman. Not until we're safe. Not a word."

The woman picked up her pace, nearly dragging Eva behind her as they made their way along the road without speaking. Soon enough, they came to a crossroads, and by the gauge of the moon, Eva judged that they took the southward fork. Within minutes, they were approaching an inn from which light and music spilled into the night.

It was surely past midnight, but the establishment appeared to be a sort that attracted those who took no account of time. The night, after all, was often the best ally of carousing and crime. On her own, Eva would never have considered entering such a place, day or night, but the woman strode through the door with perfect assurance, leading Eva to a seat in a far corner that surely had been witness to no lack of whispered conversations about secret plans. Though they attracted stares, they took their seats without interference. The woman leaned forward.

"I know the flower that you seek," she said, and from under her shawl she produced a bronze coin with the same symbol that had been burned into the man's hand. "The Tear of Heaven, they call it."

"Who calls it that?"

"The Knights. They have come here to steal the Sun's Gift from us. The Sun gave it to us, and they wish to take it, plant it in the gardens of Marienburg or offer it to the Pope. We must save it, protect it."

"Do you know where it is?"

"No, but there are those who do, and I am sworn never to tell who they are. We must be careful. The Count's ears are everywhere, even in this room."

"But how will I find it?" Eva asked.

The woman looked astonished.

"But you must never find it, dear. No one must ever find it – not even I who have promised to protect it. It is more important than all of us, and it must remain hidden." The woman looked around the room again. "You have seen the tower, yes? There are others – other towers, other Counts, but all with the same purpose. Do not ask me to help you find it. You could be one of them here to trick me. But if you are true, you will help us keep it safe."

And she handed the coin to Eva.

"It is the mark of the faithful. Remain faithful, and your husband will be well. Now, I must go. We will bring attention to ourselves."

It was Eva's turn to look astonished.

"What am I to do, then?"

"Stay here for the night. They will give you no trouble if they know you are here with me. Then tomorrow, at the first light, head for home and say nothing of what you have seen and heard. But keep that coin, and if ever we have need of you, we will find you."

"And who are you?"

"It is unwise that we should know each other's names. But you may call me Mother. Now come."

The woman did as she said and let a room for the night. Once in the room, the woman bade farewell to Eva and left through the window.

"May we never meet again. But if we have need, perhaps we shall."

And she was gone.

« NEXT: The Vow »


	7. The Vow

_~Foreword~_

_Somehow, the boy who was a fisherman had to become the father of the Kings of Corona. This installment tells how it happens. _

_+ Map of the places in this story +  
><em>findingcorona(dot)tumblr(dot)com/post/7280139900/this-is-a-companion-map-to-my-story-the-house-of

* * *

><p>CHAPTER TWO<br>June 22, 1378

{ Part Five }  
><strong>The Vow<strong>

The night passed quickly and without incident. When Eva awoke, it was already well past daybreak, and she hastened to leave, worried that she had failed to follow the woman's counsel. The trip back was long. She had never been to this part of the highlands before, and the directions of the inn-keeper, though seemingly well-meaning, were impaired by the fact that he had only stopped drinking two hours before and fell asleep twice in giving them.

With no need for secrecy, however, she made her way from inn to inn until at last she found herself on the trading road she had first followed from the village. At the water's edge, she found one of the small barks the village women used to row to shore and back and set off for the island.

That Jakub was there at the quay, mending the rigging on his skiff, gave Eva no surprise; she had still did not know what to make of the woman who called herself Mother, but she had believed her pronouncement about Jakub implicitly – she was certain that the Almighty had led her every step in the highlands.

As Jakub saw Eva approach in the tiny boat, he grinned the grin that she thought she might never see again.

"Did you find it?"

"I found something altogether more wonderful," and in her hand, she squeezed the coin.

"As have I, my dear. Let's talk."

They met at the pier and she pulled him down to kiss him. Hand in hand, they walked into the house, where Eva saw something she had not expected. Sitting at their kitchen table was a man unlike any who had ever sat at their kitchen table. He was dressed in fine clothes and held a walking cane at his side that was studded with a dozen precious stones that seemed seized from imagination, so brilliant and colorful were they. The impression of this man was so jarring to Eva that she at first did not see the brooch upon his right breast: a sun of fourteen rays.

"This is Karl Niemczyk, dear. Two days ago during the storm, I happened upon his ship, which had run aground off Hel, and I helped him save his cargo."

"Don't be modest, Jakub. You saved my own neck, besides. I owe your husband everything, madam."

"Yes, well Mr. Niemczyk has made an offer as a measure of his gratitude," Jakub continued. "He is a burgher of Gdansk and I am to understand that he has become quite prosperous in the sea trade…"

"Filthy rich, more like," the man interjected.

"…And he has proposed that Piotr become his apprentice. He has no wife or family and says he would treat Piotr quite as his own son."

"And you have agreed to this?" Eva asked.

"I have."

"Then I have only one question." She pulled out the coin and held it up. "What do you make of this, Mr. Niemczyk?"

The look that came over his face was of shock too great to be expressed in words, so Eva continued.

"I have encountered two people in the last day regarding this symbol – one who wanted to kill me for it, and another who swore me to protect it. I wonder where you might come down on the matter."

"To my knees, madam." And he did kneel on the floor before her. Jakub looked lost, but made no move to interrupt. "I cannot wear this in Gdansk, it is too dangerous," he said, pointing to the brooch. "But here, I thought I might… It was merely a lark, an impulse… I never thought… There are so few of us who know of its existence – who know that it is the true reason the Knights have remained. Have you seen it?"

"No. But Mother told me there are those who have."

"I know of no one called 'Mother,' nor of anyone who has seen it in living memory."

Eva was troubled by this. "Then how are you sure it is true?"

"There are documents, accounts that cannot be doubted – that have been verified in every other particular – that speak of it. The Knights, too, know of these. But I know of no one who has seen it. Who is this Mother?"

"I had hoped you might tell me. She says she is one of us."

"It is possible," Mr. Niemczyk said, thinking.

"And the Count?"

Mr. Niemczyk laughed.

"I know of many Counts, each more bloodthirsty than the last. I daresay you have not met Rügenwald or you would not have a head to tell the tale!"

"What of the man in the tower?"

"We hear only rumors of him. He is the Wolf, and he is more to be feared than a castle full of Counts."

"He spared my life last night."

"Did he? He shall be very sorry that he did. You must come to Gdansk and tell the Brothers of all you have learned. Much could be gained from it."

"I am nothing, sir. My son is everything. You say you want to help him? Then help yourself and your cause, too. Tell him all that you know about this symbol – make him one of your Brothers – and I shall tell him all that I know, and we shall be joined in our purpose by more than metal trinkets, but by my very flesh and blood."

"All that you ask shall be done, and more. From this day, let the boy be my own flesh and blood, too."

"Then we are agreed, you shall take him with you tomorrow," Eva said.

There would be time to explain what had just happened to Jakub and, more especially, Piotr in the hours to come. But in that moment of revelation, Eva recognized that the gears of a greater purpose were now engaged, and in that cause, a life's obsession had at last found its fulfillment.

« NEXT: Servant of the Crown »


	8. Servant of the Crown

_~Foreword~_

_I wanted to tell the backstory of how Rapunzel's family gained its wealth and power. I got the idea from all the pictures of the Corona harbor showing merchant ships at port. This chapter also explains a historical difficulty presented by "Tangled": How the Spanish word "corona" could be the name for a kingdom that designers said was essentially set in Central Europe. Perhaps it was just misspelled... And yes, that will be Rapunzel's last name. Gesundheit. _

_+ Where is Corona? +  
><em>findingcorona(dot)tumblr(dot)com/whereiscorona

_+ Map of the places in this story +  
><em>findingcorona(dot)tumblr(dot)com/post/7280139900/this-is-a-companion-map-to-my-story-the-house-of

* * *

><p>CHAPTER THREE<br>May 15, 1457

**Servant of the Crown**

Adam Przebendowski* stood in the drawing room, looking at the portrait of the man he barely knew. He had only been three when grandfather died. The face that hung from the wall swam out of childhood memories only vaguely and reluctantly. Sometimes it seemed astonishing to Adam to think that Piotr Przebendowski had once been an actual man at all – the son of a fisherman who ate with knife and fork and needed to use chamber pots. To Adam, he seemed a mythical thing, a Colossus of the Baltic whose feet stood astride the unfathomable distance between those tiny cottages on the fisherman's island north of Oliwa and the Gdansk mansion that his grandson now inhabited in such ease. Everything Adam had ever known – all that the Przebendowski name now meant in Gdansk – was the result of what Grandpa Piotr had done, and father always made sure Adam knew it.

Przebendowski ships always came to port on time because of Grandpa Piotr, father said. While Mr. Niemczyk had had a gift for procuring the unusual and hard to find, Grandpa Piotr added the common sense of a fisherman's son. He often ate his meals in the public houses on the quays of Gdansk so he could hear the rumors – who was carrying what cargo, which captains were the most reliable, what was the best way to run drunkards out of a crew. Grandpa was only thirty when Mr. Niemczyk turned the business over to him, and under Grandpa it became the most efficient shipping operation east of Stralsund.

Adam's favorite stories had been the ones of Grandpa Piotr sailing out with his cargo ships, sleeping in the master's cabin with sword and scabbard by his bedside, taking night watches with the wharf rats of Gdansk. "A man is only as low or as fearful as he is allowed to be," father often said, quoting his own father. The cutlass Grandpa had taken from a pirate who attempted to board one of his ships now hung beneath the portrait. The hand that had clasped the sword was at the bottom of the Baltic, grandpa had been fond of saying, but the owner had still managed to down a flagon of ale (left handed) before being packed off onto his own ship and told never to trouble a ship with the Przebendowski standard again.

But Piotr Przebendowski had learned some things from Mr. Niemczyk, too. Mr. Niemczyk had gained his fortune precisely because he was the one man in Gdansk who could acquire anything, no questions asked. His contacts stretched from Palestine to Naples to every palace and back alley of Gdansk. He could deliver twenty tons of manure to the front gate of Marienburg, and the Teutonic Order would have been none the wiser as to who did it. It was this gift that made the Polish crown one of his most loyal patrons – using Mr. Niemczyk's ships to avoid the Order's stranglehold on the Baltic coast. Under Grandpa Piotr, however, this relationship became something more akin to a naval alliance, with grandpa a secret agent of the crown in the heart of Teutonic Gdansk.

With the Order doing everything in its power to hinder the growth of Gdansk – wanting to shift the Baltic trade to its ports elsewhere – an alliance with the Polish crown seemed like a daring bit of mercantile foresight. If Poland could oust the Order from Gdansk, the port would thrive, and the Przebendowski fleet – the most loyal servant of the crown – would be the biggest winners. But Adam understood that far more than entrepreneurial opportunism was behind his grandfather's allegiance.

He looked at the portrait again with a smile. On his grandfather's right breast was the brooch Adam now wore: the Sign of the Sun's Gift. Grandpa Piotr's alliance with Poland was never really about money. It was about making the flower safe. For nearly seventy years now, a Przebendowski had been in the Brotherhood, and for nearly seventy years, a Przebendowski had helped in thwarting the true designs of the Order. Now, the Order's resolve was failing. Those who had kept the Order in Pomerelia in search of the Sun's Gift had long since died, and the Grand Masters who had replaced them grew ever more distracted by money and the growth of their mercenary army. Until they were gone, however, the threat remained – the brooch upon grandfather's painted chest was a constant reminder of the need for vigilance. Sometimes, like today, Adam would come here just to look at it – to remind himself of the sacrifices grandfather made to protect it, and how he was rewarded a hundredfold. Today, however, he looked upon his grandfather for a different reason. Today, he wished that Piotr Przebendowski could be here to see what his family name had accomplished.

Adam turned from the room. He was needed in City Hall within the hour, and he could delay no longer.

The streets murmured as he passed – an audible rumble of anticipation. King Casimir had been in Gdansk for weeks already, but those weeks had led to this point.* The city might have risen up to expel the Order three years before, but today, with the presence of the King, those ruinous years would finally and officially be a thing of the past. Gdansk, and all Pomerelia, would confirm its place under the Polish crown.

As a member of the City Council, Adam had played no small part in bringing this about – at first clandestinely through his naval activities and then openly after Gdansk threw off the yoke of the Order three years ago. Casimir had come largely at Adam's urging, and with the combined clout of Gdansk's burghers, had convinced Casimir to welcome Pomerelia into Poland on its own terms – the right to govern itself and to pay its allegiance to the King only in an annual tribute.* The might of Casimir would ensure that the Order was gone forever, that the city was safe – that the flower is safe, Adam thought to himself.

He arrived at City Hall to find the King already present. They embraced like brothers.

"How happy I am finally to see this day," Adam said to the King. "At last our lands are safe from the Order and are under the rule of the rightful crown."

"I, too, have long hoped to see this day, and you shall soon know the depth of my gratitude, my friend."

The ceremony soon began, and Adam took his seat. Several of his colleagues on the City Council stood to give speeches suitable for the occasion – suitably boring, truth be told. But Adam did not care nor did he take notice of them. The document before the King was everything. So long as it was signed, Adam could sit through a thousand tedious ramblings. It came time for Adam to speak, and he thought only to be finished.

"In the document before you, your Grace, are all my hopes for our city. Words can take no account of the importance of what you have sworn to do today. I pray that you do it and in that action, make the great city of Gdansk whole again."

He sat.

"Here, here," the King said. "But not so fast, my friend. Come."

He beckoned to Adam, and Adam rose to stand by the King's side.

"Here, we bind our fortunes together and in the stroke of a pen chase the clouds that have hung over this city for too long," King Casimir said. "Let Gdansk once again be free, and let our humble crown be the instrument of her liberation."

And the King signed the paper with obvious relish. The assembly applauded until Casimir raised his hand.

"But there remains one small matter of business to be attended to," he added. "In this Great Privilege I have granted you – the liberation of Gdansk from her tormentors – I have yet a few legitimate claims on this pearl of the Baltic. One has yet to be settled. As you know, by the terms of this agreement before me, I have the pleasure of naming to my crown one envoy from among your council."

He turned to Adam and rose, holding in his hand a small crown. He stepped toward Adam and held the crown over his bowed head.

"From henceforth, may this crown be a symbol of loyalty to the King and the Polish Empire he serves. Let it proclaim to all who see it, that here is a man and a family that has shown commitment beyond all measure to myself and to those who have come before me. To all those who live in our lands, let Adam Przebendowski and all those that come after him to be known as faithful Servants of the Crown. Adam Przebendowski, I hereby bestow upon you and all your kin forever after the royal title, House of Korona."*

« NEXT: The Princess of Radziwill »

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><p><em>NOTES<em>

• _The Przebendowskis were a prominent family of Polish nobles that owned eleven palaces north of Gdansk in the general area of my fictional Corona island. My Przebendowskis have nothing to do with the real family of Gen. Jozef Przebendowski, though I used the name for historical resonance. _

• _King Casimir was a real Polish king who visited Gdansk on these dates to welcome it into the Polish empire, formally severing its ties with the Order. _

• _Under the terms of the reunification with Poland, Gdansk was made a free city – allowed to retain autonomous rule and mint its own coins, for instance._

• "_Korona" is the Polish word for "crown."_


	9. The Princess of Radziwill

_~Foreword~_

_Since the first time I saw "Tangled," I have loved the King and Queen. I wanted to know who they were and how they met and fell in love. This is that story._

_+ Where is Corona? +  
><em>findingcorona(dot)tumblr(dot)com/whereiscorona

_+ Map of the places in this story +  
><em>findingcorona(dot)tumblr(dot)com/post/7280139900/this-is-a-companion-map-to-my-story-the-house-of

* * *

><p>CHAPTER FOUR<br>July 18, 1706

{ Part One }  
><strong>The Princess of Radziwill<strong>

Agnieszka could not easily account for her restlessness. She knew that this day could prove the fulcrum for her future life – the day upon which everything forever changed. But there had been other such days before now – other visits from other noble families, other young men seeking in her matrimonial hand a lucrative alliance with the House of Radziwill.* She had never feared them. Father had more sense than to pack her off to the first family offering twelve gilded carriages, a peacock, and a handful of buckwheat farms in Silesia.

"You are my last and greatest treasure, Agnieszka," her father often told her. "I shall part with you only to one who is worthy of you and of our family name. Let the King of England ask for your hand, and if he has no common sense, I shall send him packing back to London before supper with a boot to his tailcoat."

She had no reason to doubt him. Now nearing seventy, he saw his youngest daughter as something more than a commodity upon which he could trade. What standing he could gain with Habsburgs or Hohenzollerns had already been accomplished though the alliances of his other children. But now Mother was gone, and she was the last of his children still at the estate and unmarried. No fewer than once a week, he reminded her of how greatly she resembled her mother. And in those moments, she felt he was more likely to keep her here to be the nurse of his old age than promise her even to Louis the Great.

Certainly, she was treated differently than her sisters and brothers had been. All ceremony had been dispensed with; she would even sit beside him as he negotiated with distinguished guests at large tables polished until they reflected the summer sun like pools of light suspended on spindly legs. Talk turned from fiefs to crops to political appointments in the Senate, and the assembled noblemen doubtless thought she was there as some ornament of the Radziwill court – living statuary to evidence Karol Radziwill's fabulous riches. For her part, Agnieszka had to hold her tongue so as not to embarrass her father by her impudence. But in more private moments, she was nothing less than a trusted adviser, valued for her common sense and, perhaps more unusually for a noble counselor, her good heart.

These rhythms of her life had become familiar routines, even amusing diversions. But on this day, the pleasant anticipation that always preceded her father's welcoming of a new and illustrious guest was tinged with a drop of anxiety. Not that the guest was of any extraordinary import. He was a nobleman, perhaps a little lower in his station than was father, but how few there were that were equal to father – and in the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania, none higher. These sorts of men were hardly unknown to her. No, what intrigued Agnieszka were the rumors of the man, which had made their way from his lands on the Baltic and from the royal court in Warsaw even to the Radziwill estate.

In some circles of the Polish nobility, the shrewdness of the Przebendowskis of Korona was seen almost as a demerit. The family was mocked as obsessive, abrasive, and overbearing. They were the descendants of Gdansk burghers – common merchants who made their fortunes in horse-trading and the running of contraband cargo. A royal commission by Casimir IV was not enough to redeem what was a family of mean stock.

But Agnieszka was not necessarily inclined to be impressed by this view. She was still unmarried at twenty-two in part because the parade of landed gentry that came to Father's estate most often valued the appearance of genteelness far more the demonstration of any good sense. It was not inconceivable, she thought, that the House of Korona was viewed with such suspicion precisely because it had good sense in such abundance.

She knew the family had played no small role in crafting the Treaty of Oliwa and ending the war that had held the Baltic in its grip for five years. She also knew its fortunes to be enormous, perhaps even as great as her father's.* Yet its landholdings were not nearly so extensive. One of the Przebendowski ancestors had founded a village on an island in the Baltic, and in the intervening two centuries it had become a thriving trading hub in the old Hanseatic League.* Since then, the Przebendowskis had expanded their lands, slowly but strategically. Their money was put, not into numerous palaces and gardens or into the acquisition of towns and courtly titles, but into trading roads to Prussia, into dams and improving the grain yields of their serfs, into better ships and the best captains, into law and order in their fiefdoms.

Such a man, Agnieszka had never met, and with flutters of nervousness she could not suppress, she recognized that it was just such a man that might at last meet father's standards for her – and wondered if that might be part of his purpose. She only hoped Jozef Przebendowski didn't have the good looks and personality of a garden snail.

With a twinge of regret at such a shallow thought, she nudged her horse in the ribs, picking up the pace on her daily tour of the countryside. Jozef of Korona would be arriving within two hours, and she must not be late.

As she made her way through the wood, Agnieszka heard the familiar sound of splashing water through the trees. On hot days, serfs from the surrounding farms would sometimes come to the pond to cool themselves off. Over the months and years, Agnieszka had gradually come to know many of them by sight, and in time she felt safe enough to stop occasionally and exclaim over the children or ask the men how the harvest was progressing. But today, she stopped for a completely different reason.

It was the horse that stopped her. No peasant had a horse like that, snow white and magnificent. Fifteen hands at least and groomed impeccably, as though a refugee from the royal stables had happened upon her father's country estate. A few more steps revealed a man sitting in the water near it, dressed only in his drenched white tunic and riding pants, holding one of the peasant-children above his head like a bird.

The first thing that struck Agnieszka about this man was the breadth of him. He was a slab of a man cut from the sturdiest of human quarries, his bearded chin like a promontory of rock, his shoulders an Alpine massif to tempt Swiss mountaineers. Yet the impression that he made upon her thought was one of gentleness. The child was dwarfed in his hands but squealing with delight. He put the child down on the bank and began talking to him, sweetly but with an earnest intensity. At one point, he wagged his finger in warning. Then up came the child, coming to rest on the horse's back. Another squeal of pleasure as he bounced hopefully, mimicking the ride he was never likely to get.

It was at that point that the man noticed Agnieszka. For several seconds, his eyes tracked her, though she couldn't be sure of the impulse. If she had been inclined to flatter herself, she would have seen in his expression a gratifying astonishment. As it was, she could not be sure if he was merely shocked at having been discovered in such a state by the lady of the estate. He had the look of one watching a herd of stampeding elephants.

The next instant, however, the boy – momentarily forgotten – toppled from the horse and onto a pile of discarded clothes. The man apologized to the boy's mother, but the boy himself apparently enjoyed the tumble so much he was asking to do it again. Agnieszka smiled and prompted her horse onward until the pond was out of sight.

« NEXT: Unexpected Negotiations »

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><p><em>NOTES<em>

• _The Radziwills were one of the most powerful families in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth._

• _In my version of the story, Korona is not technically a "kingdom," since no kings lived on the Baltic Sea coast during the time when "Tangled" took place. So the "king" of Korona is technically one of a class of Polish nobles known as "magnates." During the time when "Tangled" was set, these nobles had substantial landholdings – called "ordynacja" estates – that Wikipedia called "veritable little principalities" and which "rivaled the estates of the king." _

• _The Hanseatic League was an association of various port cities in northern Europe. Gdansk was a major Hanseatic port. The League was in decline by the eighteenth century, but I suggest that Korona owed its origin and wealth to the trade._


	10. Unexpected Negotiations

_+ Map of the places in this story +  
><em>findingcorona(dot)tumblr(dot)com/post/7280139900/this-is-a-companion-map-to-my-story-the-house-of

* * *

><p>CHAPTER FOUR<br>July 18, 1706

{ Part Two }  
><strong>Unexpected Negotiations<strong>

When the doors to the parlor opened that afternoon, Jozef knew at once he was utterly lost.

He had come here in search of something eminently practical, he reminded himself. His purpose was just and honest. After all, what family of the Commonwealth was nearly so well situated to help him gain better access to the coasts of Livonia, and to reach beyond Königsberg into the heart of Wilno than was the House of Radziwill? And who else could help Radziwill gain access to the Baltic trade, could curry favor with the Prussians and Swedes, and open the doors of Gdansk more than could the House of Korona?

No, he had been right to come here. These two great Houses had common purpose.

All this, he could remember so long as he looked at the hands in his lap or at the grounds beyond the window. But seated next to Chancellor Radziwill, impossible to ignore, was the woman he had seen at the pond.

Jozef's thoughts chased each other like barking dogs. She had seen him half-undressed in a country pond, which, he assumed, was not typical for guests to this house. Even now, he felt her eyes on him, coming to who knew what conclusion. He gathered himself and resolved to look at her directly, refusing to be cowed.

This was a mistake.

Those at the royal court who were sympathetic to Jozef had joked of his real reason for setting off into the wilds of Lithuanian lands to visit the Radziwill estate. Only the siren call of Agnieszka could tempt such a sea salt as Jozef Przebendowski to the castle at Nesvizh. Jozef had ignored these taunts, mindful only of his business. It was only now that he came to realize how foolish he had been. At least Odysseus had had a length of rope to lash himself to the mast. Sitting across the table from her, he was defenseless.

Since her afternoon ride, she had pinned up her brown hair into some elaborate contraption decipherable only to women and basket-weavers. It accentuated the length of her neck and the shape of it, a perfect parabola of milky skin descending into the uncharted areas beneath her dress. Her eyes, though, were what made her as difficult as the sun to look upon directly. The green of them was almost translucent, as though lit from within. And they were looking at him.

She leaned toward her father to whisper something, and he chuckled.

"To business, shall we? From your correspondence, I take it that you are less than thrilled by the tariffs that the Memel council seems determined to place on your goods. And I must confess I am rather less than thrilled by the fact that your brethren in Gdansk tend to feign deafness to whatever I have to say. I say, we do have much to discuss…."

The turning of the conversation to something more familiar was welcome. There was much to distract him, whether it was neatly penned invectives from Lithuanian guildsmen or maps of trade routes through the Pomerelian highlands. Quills were itching parchment perpetually. At times, he was able even to forget where he was, imagining he was back in his castle in Korona, riffling thought reams of documents by candlelight.

After some time, they came to a pause, and Jozef fell back into his seat, exhausted but pleased by the progress they had made. Without thinking, he looked up at Agnieszka, who had glided about the room silently, but attentive, during the negotiations. Flush with the excitement of the discussions, he was surprised to find himself unabashed by her stare.

"I hear that you often take part in your father's private dealings. I wonder if you might tell me how I am doing."

"You have not yet surrendered all your lands and wealth to my father, so I must say you are doing quite well."

The Chancellor seated himself next to his daughter again.

"Agnieszka, you would make me out to be some sort of landbound pirate!"

"I wish that you were," Jozef laughed. "The Przebendowskis know how to handle pirates. We are rather more befuddled by other perils."

He looked at her, daring her to understand.

The Chancellor picked up the conversation when Agnieszka said nothing.

"Well, I hope those perils do not include balls, for such a famous person as yourself cannot come into the country without permitting us the chance to show off a bit. You musn't be allowed to leave thinking that Lithuania is some Polish backwater!"

"I hardly think that possible," Jozef said, indicating the opulence of the room in which they sat. "And backwaters very rarely beget princesses."

"True! We do have those in abundance!" the Chancellor said. "And balls are the only way to keep them happy, I tell you. I daresay the court at Korona has no time for such frivolities, if half the rumors I hear about you are true, Przebendowski."

"There are other rumors," Agnieszka interjected.

Jozef looked politely bemused, her father, interested.

"I have heard stories of the House of Korona spending its afternoons playing with the children of serfs and servants in country ponds."

The tone of the comment gave Jozef no clue as to whether it was condemning or curious. But on this point, beauty was no inducement for Jozef to deceive.

"On my lands, at least, I have been fortunate to find that joy is no respecter of classes, Miss Radziwill. To the contrary, I think one might say that in that pursuit, the poor may often be wealthier than ourselves, so long as we do not steal it from them. Happiness is no tax: It is best shared, not collected."

For a moment, Agnieszka appeared discomposed – to the point that Jozef wondered if it might be decent to look away. But when she spoke, there was no doubting her words were playful and in good spirit.

"You are truly an odd man, Mr. Przebendowski," she smiled.

"You are severe upon him, daughter!"

"I assure you, I am not, Father. Have you ever met his like, I ask you?"

The Chancellor paused as a laugh mounted within him. "I say, I do think she has the measure of you Korona!"

« NEXT: Strawberry-picking and cold knees »


	11. Strawberry picking and cold knees

_+ Nesvizh Castle +  
><em>en(dot)wikipedia(dot)org/wiki/Nesvizh_Castle

_+ Map of the places in this story +  
><em>findingcorona(dot)tumblr(dot)com/post/7280139900/this-is-a-companion-map-to-my-story-the-house-of

* * *

><p>CHAPTER FOUR<br>July 18 to August 2, 1706

{ Part Three }  
><strong>Strawberry-picking and cold knees<strong>

The rest of the negotiations that evening passed pleasantly – dinner followed by further talks that lasted well into the night. They would begin again the next day, and for several days after that, but never until afternoon, which gave Jozef the opportunity of exploring the grounds and the village of Nesvizh in greater detail. It was certainly impressive. The main castle seemed to him a lemon confection, imposing and yellow and striped like a layer cake.

For generations, the Przebendowskis had refused to build themselves a castle as a matter of principle. It was often said that the true Przebendowski crest was: "Wealth is a means, not an object." It was a lesson taught to Przebendowski boys from the time they were given their first abacus and taught to do their figures. But in time, the family did apply its growing wealth to purchasing its own estate: the island the Piotr had left generations before, as well as large tracts of land in the highlands adjacent to it on the shore. And when the family had at last left Gdansk to return to the island, they had, after all, needed a place to live. Over years their castle took shape. First the palace itself and gradually towers and plazas and outbuildings until it was now a castle to contend even with the seat of the Radziwill. Yet as he walked through Nesvizh, it was the sea that called his thoughts back home.

How someone could live so far from the sea, he could not fathom. Jozef's father had added the last and highest of the towers to the Korona castle when Jozef was only a boy. On warm nights when the sound of dances in the village squares below climbed the tower walls like honeysuckle, sweet and fragrant, Jozef looked out over the dark folds of the Pomerelian Highlands, a rumpled fabric of oaks and fields and tiny cottage lights interwoven into the seamless garment of night. In the other direction was the sea and the thin skein of the Hel headlands beyond, bisecting the lustrous glow of the moon on the water. In Korona, the world beckoned. Here, it seemed pushed beyond the perimeters of a featureless horizon.

Yet as talks continued through the end of the week, Jozef felt his desire to leave diminish. It was two mornings after his arrival that the Chancellor decided to take his party wolf-hunting. Jozef had no interest in it. His only thought of wolves had been how to keep them from his farmers' sheep. But Agnieszka was in the riding party, and the Chancellor could not fail to notice that as he and the other assembled nobles plunged into the brush in search of four-legged beasts, Jozef stayed behind as long as he could, talking of his visits to see the horses of the Spanish court and his plans to breed pure-blood Andalusians and Arabians* for nobles throughout Poland, Austria, and German lands. Agnieszka won from Jozef a promise that, the following morning, she could ride his horse – a prospect that allowed Jozef to follow the Chancellor's hounds with far less grumbling for the rest of the morning.

From that day forward, they met every morning during his visit, and with Agnieszka as a guide, Nesvizh improved greatly. Sometimes they would walk through the village and the grounds, she telling stories of the time she had seen the lonely willow in the south field split by lightning, or of winter days in the church that turned her eight-year-old knees as cold as the stone floor. Other times they rode to more distant parts of the Radziwill estate, settling down by a small river, where Jozef tried to imagine a life where water ran only in such small courses, tamed and toothless.

In these pursuits, Jozef appeared to have gained an ally in Chancellor Radziwill. Morning wolf-hunts were abandoned in favor of strawberry-picking or lawn games that did not require the segregation of the men and the ladies. Jozef took this as encouragement as the last night of his stay approached – the night the Chancellor had set aside for his ball. The talks were finished and Jozef was gratified that both parties seemed set to benefit from them. For the first time since the fall of the Hansa, Przebendowski ships were poised to spread eastward into the lands of Livonia, and in return he vowed to represent the Chancellor's wishes before the Gdansk City Council, where the Pzebendowski name retained significant influence.

But for Jozef, one piece of business remained unfinished.

« NEXT: The Grand Ball »

* * *

><p><em>NOTES<em>

• _There is a real Polish society for breeding Arabian horses called Korona._


	12. The Grand Ball

_+ Map of the places in this story +  
><em>findingcorona(dot)tumblr(dot)com/post/7280139900/this-is-a-companion-map-to-my-story-the-house-of

* * *

><p>CHAPTER FOUR<br>August 2, 1706

{ Part Four }  
><strong>The Grand Ball<strong>

When he had left Korona weeks ago, Jozef had not even imagined this last piece of business that remained. His conscience tortured him. He knew that the nobility of the Commonwealth saw him and his family as usurpers, little better than tradesmen with a royal title. And the Radziwills were not common nobles. The King himself was not more esteemed than the Radziwills. Seen as a political alliance, the advantage was all his own.

But he did not see it as a political alliance. It was not beyond the realm of possibility that Chancellor Radziwill, when he learned of Jozef's intent toward his youngest daughter, might in anger withdraw all that he had offered to Korona during their days of painstaking negotiations. Yet as the abacus of Jozef's mind clicked in consideration, calculating the costs and benefits of such a proposal, there was no doubt: the risk was worth taking. This calmed him. The Przebendowskis were not, by nature, romantics. If he had found a woman that was worth more than long-sought trading routes to Livonia, then the greater mistake would be not to act, no matter what the consequences.

There was confidence to be gained, too, from the fact that Chancellor Radziwill had insisted upon a ball at which Jozef could not fail to dance with Agnieszka. What was more, he had thrown the two of them together in strawberry-picking and croquet and in countless card games. He could not be surprised at what had happened. As he dressed for the ball, Jozef even allowed himself to hope that his intentions would not be entirely surprising or offensive to Agnieszka. That morning, as he had been walking with her down a row of linden trees in the Radziwill garden, he had asked for the first two dances.

"My dear Lord Korona, you cannot possibly think I have any desire to dance with anyone else tonight. Aside from being the only new person at the ball, you are also the only one leaving tomorrow, and the only one I have no guarantee of ever seeing again. I only hope that you do not forget me when all the pretty girls of Nesvizh throng you tonight, as they surely will. I have had you all to myself this week. I must not always expect such good fortune."

"You can expect that tonight will not be the last you ever see me, if you do not wish it to be so."

"I do not. Do you imagine that I take long walks and horse rides every morning with all of my father's guests?"

"No act of charity on your part would surprise me."

"And you think this charity?"

Jozef paused.

"I am, as you have said, not the most typical of gentlemen. I have long since learned to expect very little from my colleagues, because they think so very little of me, and I must confess, I did not expect to my time here to be so different. So you will forgive me if I sometimes find it disorienting to be treated as you and your father have treated me here, Miss Radziwill. All new experiences require some acclimation, even goodness."

"Then you must spend more time with us, that it might not seem so extraordinary."

"Perhaps I shall, then."

That, however, would depend on what happened tonight, and in that instant, Jozef thought she understood.

The Chancellor asked that Jozef receive the guests with himself and Agnieszka that night. "I assure you, you shall not miss a single dance," he had laughed. Standing in the reception line between them at the start of the ball felt like an audition. Nobles who would have taken pains to ignore him in the Sejm now bowed before him, and he was surprised to find that Agnieszka had been right – Jozef had not have imagined that Nesvizh and its surrounding estates held so many young ladies. He thought he felt her move fractionally closer to him whenever they approached, though she carried on whatever conversation she was having without any sign of interruption.

At last, the Chancellor clapped his hands. "Ah, it is time!" he said and held up his hands in a gesture of welcome. "Let us begin, then, shall we." He motioned to the dance floor. Jozef held out his arm, Agnieszka took it, and they walked out into the ballroom to join the other pairings.

« LAST PART: The Secret »


	13. The Secret

_+ Rapunzel's Family Tree +  
><em>findingcorona(dot)tumblr(dot)com/HouseofKorona-lineage

_+ The Korona Kontor House +  
><em>findingcorona(dot)tumblr(dot)com/post/7284464255/this-building-fascinates-me-i-love-it-it-was

_+ Map of the places in this story +  
><em>findingcorona(dot)tumblr(dot)com/post/7280139900/this-is-a-companion-map-to-my-story-the-house-of

* * *

><p>CHAPTER FOUR<br>August 2, 1706

{ Part Five }  
><strong>The Secret<strong>

As they took to the dance floor, Agnieszka looked at Jozef through eyes that seemed to encompass the whole room, two great emerald rings binding him. She smiled gently.

"I say, do common burghers of Gdansk even know how to dance?"

"Very ill. But now you see how clever we are. I have got you for the first two dances no matter how frightfully I embarrass you."

They began, and Agnieszka had no cause for embarrassment. For a time they said nothing, each held in the trance of the moment, suspended in its perfection like figurines in a crystal globe. To Jozef, the world seemed blurred at the edges, indistinct brushstrokes of shape and color that radiated from Agnieszka, who, at the center, was all that his consciousness acknowledged – a single lotus on a wide and silent sea.

"What is this?" she asked, indicating the brooch on his chest during the second dance.

"It is something very old, and something that, I think, no one outside Korona has ever heard of anymore, for which I am very glad."

"I assure you I have heard of the sun!"

"Then I have fooled you just as I have fooled the rest."

"What is it, then?"

"I hope with all my heart that I may tell you one day."

"Then let this be the day."

The music ended and a fear rose in Jozef's heart – a realization that, long before he had intended it, the moment had come. _Yes, let this be the day_, he thought.

"Might we walk a ways?" he asked her, and though she noticed the change in his tone with some alarm, she nodded.

Jozef led her from the ballroom and onto a portico, where the crowd was thinner and the activity of the dance became an audible curtain, drawn behind them in pleasantly indistinct folds of ambient noise. Only a few men smoking pipes dallied, their hands behind their backs, speaking in low grumbles about horse races and gambling. Jozef passed them, and when he arrived at the balustrade overlooking the linden trees and the garden, he stopped. Agnieszka looked up at him, and for that second, her beauty was like physical pain to him. Standing in front of him, her cheeks flushed, her delicate hands held outward, each finger a psalm to the grace of some higher power, he knew that this image of her would be forever seared in his memory – whether torment or triumph the minutes that followed would decide.

"Do you imagine that I walk this way with all young ladies?"

"I have spent the best part of this week wondering that very thing, Lord Korona. You appear to be such a mystery, and all those of my acquaintance who have had some dealings with you confess to being befuddled by you."

"I promise you I am the least mysterious man who ever set foot in Radziwill Castle."

"I do not believe you. I believe that you are the most extraordinary man I have ever met. You are a man who is precisely what he seems to be. Few men have such courage, Lord Korona, for to be honest to oneself and all those around him, one must be truly good, and that is the most extraordinary gift of all."

"You are mocking me now."

"I never mock goodness, I am too deficient in it to make light of it. But I hope I am humble enough to recognize it when it stands before me."

"And are you able to recognize why I have asked you to come here?"

"I thought it was to tell me of your one true mystery," and she pointed to the brooch.

"It is. It is my dearest wish to tell you everything I know about this symbol. But I have been sworn to protect it – only a Przebendowska can know what it means."

She said nothing, taking in his full meaning.

"Before I came here, I could not have believed that one week could so completely change a life," he said. "But if you think this one week could be a foretaste of an entire life, then I ask you never to let this week end. If the fate of Livonia or Gdansk or Wilno can be changed in a single week, then why not the fate of two lives? The man who came here a week ago would have said it was an impossibility, but I am not that man anymore. Can someone stare into the sun for seven days and not be blinded? I confess that I do not yet know the slightest part of your tastes or family relations. But I feel I know your heart, and I know I have given you mine. Now, my only hope is that you accept it and consent to be my wife."

His answer came in the eyes that, even in candlelight, seemed luminous. She held his hand, and for the first time Jozef allowed himself to look at her fully and without fear, knowing that he would never need to part from her.

"You must go to Father tomorrow," Agnieszka said. "He will give you his blessing, I am certain of it."

"And when shall we go into Korona?"

She laughed. "You are a merchant man indeed! However, you have purchased a Radziwill wife, and those transactions take time. We are not cargo that can be packed off in the next shipment."

"I did not mean…"

She quieted him with her outstretched finger on his lips.

"I know. I want to see all the things you love, too – the Baltic, and the great Kontor House* that your grandfather's grandfathers built, and the secret of this mysterious sun. But Radziwill marriages are no small thing, and we must be patient, both of us."

"Even for a merchant, there are things worth waiting for."

"Like trading-rights in Livonia?"

"And the next dance." He held out his hand. "Come, we must enjoy ourselves before we are an old married couple, and the ball has only begun."

They began walking back to the ballroom with light step, so filled with the joy of the moment that they were almost running. The whole night was before them, and after that days and years and two lifetimes now joined. "Be faithful, and the flower will provide," his father had always said, as grandfather had said before him. Over more than three centuries, over more than ten generations, it had provided more than a poor Baltic fisherman could possibly have dreamed. Yet on this night, Jozef dared to imagine that all of it – the wealth, the titles, the power – had led to this point. Now, he was bringing to Korona its most precious gift of all.

« END »

* * *

><p><em>NOTES<em>

• _All cities of the Hanseatic League had local "headquarters" in buildings called Kontor Houses. _


	14. Rapunzel's family tree

RAPUNZEL'S FAMILY TREE  
><em>Fam. Przebendowski (The House of Korona)<em>

*Piotr b. 1354 ~ apprenticeship (1367)

Marek b. 1387

*Adam b. 1418 ~ Great Privilege (1457)

Piotr b. 1452

Henryk b. 1485

Franciszek b. 1509 ~ Relocated family to island-village; began construction of Korona castle (1568)

Janusz b. 1544

Adam b. 1574

Stefan b. 1610

Wojciech b. 1638 ~ finished castle (1668)

* Jozef b. 1673 ~ married Agnieszka Radziwill (1706)  
>• Rapunzel (Roszpunka) b. 1710<p>

* * *

><p>* Mentioned in story<p> 


End file.
